


Knots of Rust

by argle_fraster



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 07:14:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/732890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argle_fraster/pseuds/argle_fraster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A small bit from the Lunar Base, set vaguely between episodes 20 and 22.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knots of Rust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sev Dragomire (seventhe)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhe/gifts), [flecksofpoppy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flecksofpoppy/gifts).



Trowa wonders if the others are as good at making excuses as he is. Perhaps it's a self-defense mechanism that arose out of necessity, their lifestyle and background and inability to function normally conjuring up behavioral patterns that ebb and flow like the tide, like clockwork. Trowa doesn't normally have to make excuses, because he's generally good at doing only what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, but tonight, that has all slipped away like his footsteps as he makes his way down the white-walled halls of the base.

There is no excuse for why he is weaving his way down to the detention level, though he tries to think of one as he listens to the rhythmic slap of his boots against the floor. He knows that OZ won't kill Heero while they need him alive - he's too valuable, too good to be wasted on something routine like a firing squad. But there's a thrum of something against his sternum anyway, and he can't swallow it down. He spent too long putting Heero back together to let someone tear it all apart.

There is only a single guard by the detention cell, and Trowa gives him a curt salute. "Relief," he says.

"Good," the soldier replies, and his shoulders shift down instantly, rolling over on themselves. "I need a stiff drink."

He leaves, and Trowa takes a few moments before he approaches the cell door.

"Trowa," Heero says, without question or inflection, before Trowa has even looked through the barred window. He must have identified Trowa from the gait and weight of his footsteps.

"You should know," Trowa tells him, "that they'll keep you here only as long as you prove useful to their ends."

There's not much light inside the cell, just the inky blackness that seems to spread like sickly fingers away from the door. He can see the bump of Heero's knee, and his foot, but the rest of the man is shrouded in shadow, and Heero makes no move to shift.

"Are you warning me?" Heero asks.

"I'm sure you've already figured out why they want you."

Heero's hand slides out into the oblong triangle of light, fingers stretching and then clenching, and the back of his hand rests on his thigh for a few moments. "Why are you here?"

"Easier to get information from the inside," Trowa replies.

"No," Heero says, and though he can't see anything other than outlines, he thinks the other boy is shaking his head. "I mean here. Why are you risking your cover to come down and tell me things I already know?"

"Did you let yourself get caught, Heero?"

Heero is silent, but with him, it's neither affirmative nor negative. Trowa wants to ask if the boy still has that death wish, still wants to be blown out of the sky for the sake of the colonies - Heero's never really gotten over the self-deprecating anger or guilt, and Trowa fears for when it rears its ugly head once more. He won't always be there to patch together torn flesh or push bones back into place.

"And you have a plan? Don't get yourself killed," Trowa says.

There's a short bark of a laugh, and Heero's foot withdraws from the light completely, so that he is nearly hidden; it's strange, because Heero's never been one to hide from things, even when it would have been easier. Maybe that's what Trowa finds so odd about him - for a boy who courts the devil, Heero finds no problem with placing himself squaring in the spotlight, waiting to be found.

Unconsciously, Trowa raises a hand to the bars and wraps his fingers around the cool surface.

"Do you have a key?" Heero asks, finally, an abrupt change of subject.

"No," Trowa says. "And they'll know it was me if you escape. There's no where to run here - the docking bay is too closely watched, and all the suits tracked."

Heero sighs in the darkness. "Wasn't planning on running."

"You never do when I expect you to."

"Do you think you know me, Trowa?" Heero asks.

Trowa knows Heero's body in an intimate way most people would be embarrassed by - he worked for hours suturing up the wounds from the destruction blast, splinting the broken shards that used to be the other boy's femur and wrist. He could draw a map of the lines of Heero's form, could recognize him by trailing his fingers over the skin he memorized out of painful, bloody necessity. But Trowa doesn't really know him, not really at all - and especially not now. He didn't believe people when they said that a month or two can change a person, and there is living proof in front of him.

"No," Trowa admits, because the honesty can't hurt him.

There's a long pause, and then Heero says, very quietly, "It might turn out to be a lie after all."

Trowa doesn't sleep much that night, consumed with guilt and worry and an odd, sweeping inclination towards protection, and wonders when it was that someone managed to get through his carefully constructed walls.

\--

He returns the next night, after scouring the information database system through the proxy he set up, trying to find what it was that OZ was doing with the rest of the pilots - all of them were listed with unknown whereabouts. If Trowa had thought he could find Duo, Quatre, and Wufei through the bits and pieces that OZ had managed to deduce, he would have been disappointed; as it was, he hadn't expected much more than a lead, but even that ended up empty.

He doesn't bother to tell Heero this - he's sure the other boy already knows.

"They are going to give us suits to pilot," he says, through the bars, in the achingly harsh brightness of the hallway. "New models, to test. I think they'll use our vitals to adjust the controls and turn them into Mobile Dolls."

"We're giving them our skills," Heero says.

"Loaning," Trowa corrects. "If we know the suits, we can eventually destroy them using their weaknesses."

Heero snorts. He's sitting in the light, this time, at least halfway. Trowa can make out the familiar point to his elbow and the slope and slide of his bicep. He's changed a bit, physically - filled out. His features are a bit more prominent, and Trowa isn't sure if it's the time since he last saw Heero or the change from being recovering on the run to recovered and a moving target again. Time is an odd river between them, anyway, impossible to cross without some sort of bridge.

"What _are_ your weaknesses?" Heero asks.

"I'd think it was rather obvious by this point," Trowa replies.

This earns him a sharp, loaded look when Heero's head whips up to stare at him through the rectangular opening. There's a lot there that Trowa chooses not to inspect, and even more that he can't place; for all he feels he's got a handle on Heero, he feels wildly out of his element now, hearting beating hard and fast in his chest. He wonders if this is how normal people feel on a daily basis, people who don't wonder if each day will end up being the one where they are killed.

Maybe this is normal, whatever that word really means.

Finally, after a long and agonizing moment that leaves pinpricks across Trowa's skin, Heero lowers his gaze again. "It's going to kill you," is all he says.

"Yeah," Trowa agrees, throat thick. "I think so, too."

\--

Due to OZ's training and schedule assignments, it is three days before Trowa can visit the detention cell once more. If Heero was disturbed by the absence, he doesn't show it.

"They're going to start with the new suits soon," Trowa says. "Tomorrow, I think. You'll finally get out of here for awhile."

"And the others?" Heero asks.

Trowa shakes his head. "No word. It's too dangerous to try and get a message out if I don't know where I'm sending it."

"OZ is monitoring you," Heero says, too casually. "They'll know you were here. You shouldn't be here if you want to keep up your cover."

"It's fine," Trowa says.

Heero stands. There are shackles on his wrists, and they weren't there days earlier, so Trowa wonders if maybe he attempted to get out - or antagonized one of the guards. If there is a purpose to upping the security, he doesn't know what it would be. The iron clanks together as Heero moves towards the door and the barred window. A quick look shows that the manacles are too tight, and have been rubbing raw the flesh on Heero's arms.

"Close encounter?" Trowa asks, and nods towards them.

Heero ignores the comment altogether. He's close now, on the opposite side of the steel separating them, but it's closer than they've been for months. It's just strange, is all, after having spent so long together in the cab of a flat-bed truck, moving from city to city and motel to campground.

"OZ will use anything they can to destroy me," Heero says, and his voice is low and raspy and odd, like there's something caught in his throat. The bars are throwing dark lines of shadow onto his face, so he looks like the wide-eyed, dangerous subject of an old chiaroscuro drawing. "They're looking for a reason to kill me."

"Haven't you already given them plenty?" Trowa throws back.

"Not enough," Heero replies. "I'm useful, but only just; if they find a weakness, they'll exploit it. Against both of us."

Trowa's fingers tighten around the window bars. "What are you saying? I already know this."

"They'll destroy us,"' Heero warns. "Don't let them find ours."

Something jumps in Trowa's stomach, hard and bright and terrified. "Ours?" he repeats.

When Heero reaches for the window, Trowa has to keep himself steady to avoid his instinctual reaction to jump back - fighting against his instincts has saved him in the past a few times, but here, he thinks he is spelling out his own doom. He lets Heero wrap his fingers around his own, and they are warm and calloused and slim, lithe fingers and double joints.

"They are looking for anything to use to drive a knife into our guts," Heero hisses.

And Trowa is already carrying his, the knife with too-blue eyes and a tight-lipped scowl.

"We just have to pilot the suits and keep them away from us long enough to find and contact the others," Trowa says. "By then, we'll have enough inside information on OZ to dismantle it from the inside."

"Don't do anything stupid," Heero tells him.

Against his better judgment, Trowa loops two of his fingers up and around Heero's, curled around the iron; there's a small intake of breath, low and barely audible, and Heero doesn't pull away.

"What, like you?" Trowa asks.

"Exactly," Heero says. "Don't be a martyr. You're no good to us dead."

"Ironic, coming from you," Trowa murmurs, and leans in to press his forehead against the steel just above the window's square opening; it's shockingly cool against his skin.

There's silence, stretched thin and full between them.

"Tomorrow?" Heero clarifies, softly.

Always, Trowa thinks. "Tomorrow," he confirms.


End file.
